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Five hours and 45 minutes after the race…

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In this week’s issue, we bring you the story of Lewis Hamilton’s nail-biting victory in Austin.

PLUS

… the race when the Grand Prix drivers were shot at

… Rick Mears, what might have been in F1

We look at the recent Young Driver Test

…and, a look back Renault’s 150 F1 victories

Plus, all the usual reports and columns and, of course, the fantastic photography of Peter Nygaard and his team.

Alonso’s “pride” at the team for sabotaging Massa’s grid position puts me in mind of Singapore in 2008. A team-mate being asked to sacrifice their race for Fernando. I guess we’ll never know the truth of his involvement in that incident, but I find it very sad that team orders are allowed to play out this way.

As Red Bull take a magnificent third consecutive WCC, Ferrari are forced to play such bad moves to try to gain something out of defeat. Hardly noble, is it?

I accept that Alonso has wrung more out of the car this year than is decent; but really, is that the way to take the fight to your competitors? Asking (telling) your teammate to throw away his advantage. Strange it doesn’t qualify as ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ with a disqualification for Alonso.

I know plenty of people here will talk about F1 being a team sport, and I agree that it is. But this action goes beyond my definition of playing a team game. Smacks of Rubens being ordered over in Austria. Ferrari just cannot stand being beaten and will do (al)most anything to win something.

Am I the only one who has no issue at all with Ferrari, but am -extremely- unimpressed that the governing body allowed the situation to get so completely out of hand that it was worth doing?

What happened to Hamilton’s vey sensible request to scrub the whole grid, to at least even it out a bit?

And if race organisers can’t achieve even remotely similiar conditions for the two sides of the grid, why shouldn’t the rules be written to allow drivers to -choose- grid positions in their qualifying order, instead of being allocated? Then Hamilton could have taken the 3rd spot, & Webber would have had the choice to take 2nd, or drop back to 5th if he thought the difference big enough. That way, however poorly some drivers lost out, at least there’d be a basic fairness in how the grid was formed. I’m sure in the WRC there’s a rule that gives the lead driver at least a little discretion over running order, if he thinks being first on the road would penalise him.

I’m with you on governance systems failing, if that’s what you mean. Anyone who thinks that a system is going to be managed simply by being statuesque and keeping their head down is simply conning everyone who interacts with the system. I did appreciate JT’s initially modest approach, but F1 and the FIA are, or should be, living, breathing systems. You need a heart pumping at the center, and one which is both strong and knows when to care and not care, yet can play the game with all the inevitable and wonderful rule breakers. I wonder if who is running this has never been to a school before .. at least a interesting one.

There is no such thing as the spirit of the rules.
If the FIA wished they could write the rules differently, but they persist with the current form, therefore it is every team’s duty to use them to maximise their chances.

Not a black-and-white rule, no, but there is still the ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ issue: if the coded message to Massa fell foul of this (which the FIA judged that it did), why doesn’t this? Ferrari’s conduct, throwing one game to improve their odds in another, sounds very similar to the Olympic badminton players succesfully charged with “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

The only people who brought the sport into disrepute were the race organisers and authorities. If you can’t achieve anything remotely like parity between the two halves of the grid, so that drivers are randomly rewarded for slow quali times and punished for quick ones, responsibility for anything within the letter of the rules that teams do to limit the damage lands right back with you. Simple as.

The problem with that situation would be that there’s one less car between Alonso and Vettel – Red Bull want him to finish as far back as he can. While all the talk of the ‘dirty side’ of the grid could have been true (in terms of losing at least two places at the start), Red Bull would have had a guaranteed car between the two, and one that could back Alonso into the pack should it be needed…

I understand it’s a annoying move, but put me in Massa’s boots for a moment, and I would be thinking “Hell yeah, what’s to loose?” because it is far better to be in a team that just won the WDC than not. The move sucked, but not as much as giving up chances to win, and all that comes from that, even as a No. 2. Though he ended up whining enough to loose me as a fan, Rubens parleyed his seat into a minor commercial empire. Something we forget, that he could boo hoo his way home on his own jet. Man, if I had all that, I’d not have been wailing but out to have fun and kick ass and be beaming at the audience, sloppy seconds by default or not. Sorry for the Rubens rant, but it’s all about style. Screwing over Felipe had no style. That’s the thing that’s awful. I don’t know how many F1 fans / geeks can afford a Ferrari, though any serious race goer likely can lease any model, but they ought to at least think of their branding.

Great race I thought, plenty action and enthusiasm from the crowd. Apparently
117,429 people attended Sunday, total attendance over three days 265,499 (82,710 Sat; 65,360 Fri). I wish total attendance figures weren’t inflated in this way though, we’re talking about the same people, in the main, so race day figures are more reliable as a guide.

Great bit of stratagy by Ferrari, to assure that both cars would start on the clean side of the grid.
One more thing I noticed is that the pit lane entrance on to the finish line, was a lot shorter than driving the track.
Was there any mention from the stewards regarging the possible short cut through the pits?
If not, then it would have been an interesting manoeuvre at the end of the race, if the cars were close enough.